Moving to a new country is never an easy task: moving when you might not know a soul, when the language is a mystery and when you are faced with an entirely new culture. All of it can be downright daunting.
Today a growing number of foreigners moving to Sweden are finding that non-traditional churches can offer a home away from home, particularly those offering services in English.
Estimates say about half of regular evangelical churchgoers are foreign-born.
"I was never particularly religious, but moving around in the expat world made me search for a deeper meaning, for both my family and me," one mother and US native tells The Local outside the Charismatic Baptist New Life Church in Stockholm.
"The modern churches give room to explore and the kids enjoy the more exciting atmosphere. We also get to meet people like us, who are foreigners living in a foreign land."
Regular church attendance in Sweden hovers somewhere around 5 percent, while levels of atheism among Swedes are estimated to be as high as 85 percent.
Yet more than half of all weddings in Sweden take place in churches and nearly 90 percent of burials follow Christian rites.
Read more: Expats flock to Sweden's evangelical churches - The Local
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